California wildfire: Death toll goes up to 50

Thousand of Firefighters continue to battle blazes at California wildfire even as death tol due devastating faire has gone up to 50. According to media reports the toll is likely to rise.

The dead have been found in burned-out cars, in the smouldering ruins of their homes, or next to their vehicles, apparently overcome by smoke and flames before they could jump in behind the wheel and escape.

The Butte County sheriff, Kory L. Honea said more than 200 people remain missing in and around the town. It has razed a staggering 6,453 homes.

Most of the fatalities have been caused by the so-called “Camp Fire” in and around the town of Paradise, population 26,000, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Sacramento.

“Today an additional six human remains were recovered, which brings the total to 48. All six of those remains were located in Paradise, and they were located within homes,” Sheriff Kory Honea told a news conference.

Another two deaths have been reported from the “Woolsey Fire,” north of Los Angeles.

Paradise, which is home to many retirees and has experienced an unusually dry fall, was virtually razed to the ground by the fast-moving “Camp Fire” blaze.

Residents have recounted harrowing tales of fleeing the fires on foot with little more than the clothes on their backs.

A 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles killed 29 people, and a series of wildfires in Northern California’s wine country last fall killed 44 people.

We mourn for the lives lost and we pray for the victims of the California Wildfires. I want to thank the Firefighters and First Responders for their incredible courage in the face of grave danger…. pic.twitter.com/3YQYZR8OzS